ej (v6b)

This page is all about my history in cycling… If you want to see what I’m up to now click on the cycling category link over there –> or click here.

I’ve always been a cyclist. I remember spending hours as a kid riding my bike up and down the street, around the block, at the “trails” at the end of the street. In high school I used to ride my beach cruiser all over town…riding from home to Pembroke mall and beyond. I’d often ride my bike to either Virgina Beach (all the way down Virginia Beach Blvd), and to Chick’s beach. No small feat on a single speed beach cruiser.

Somewhere around my junior or senior year my grandmother bought my brother and I mountain bikes. They were HEAVY (they weighed around 30 pounds!) They were these monstrous steel bikes with friction shifters (and 15 gears!) and steel wheels. We took them to Farmville and rode from the house there to Appatamox and back (past the Brown and Stiff Funeral Home! I swear it’s true!) On the way back it was raining…which, with the steel wheels, meant that we had NO brakes! We both decided that we were glad to have had them, because without them, we wouldn’t have known what we were missing!

In college, I bought a bright yellow Giant Iguana. Keep in mind, that these were in the days before any kind of suspension. It had a CroMoly frame with LOTS of flex in the fork. It was an 18 speed with INDEX shifting! Very amazing for the time (this is around 1983) I rode that bike forever! Wayne and I used to put 1.0″ slicks on it (he had a Specialized StumpJumper with drop bars and slicks) and ride all over Newport News and Williamsburg. Our longest ride was 84 miles, and that was the summer that I put 2400 miles on my bike. That was quite a summer.

My next few years my riding dwindled. I had Alex, work, all sorts of stuff. We really didn’t live in an area that was conducive to riding, so I pretty much stopped riding for years.

Around 2001, I decided that my Iguana was done…it needed work (like a new drive train), new headset, etc. It was going to cost me $400-$500 to upgrade it, the frame wouldn’t fit the new gear spacing without being stretched…. I decided to get a new bike. I ended up buying a Fischer Tassajara. It’s a hardtail. I rode it only about 500 miles the first year, then about the same for the next couple of years. I took it to Wayne’s in New York, and he promptly thrashed me. When I came home I tried to ride, but it was just too hard to find time.

In 2004 I was working at my present school when I bought my bike from Frank LaVoie. He bought it new (along with the full package…helmet, shoes, pump, computer, etc.) from A1-Bikes. He only rode it about 100 miles, then decided it hurt his knees, so he sold me the whole works for $500! He really didn’t know what he had. The bike has full Shimano 105, including shifters, derailleur (front and rear), and wheels. My first year I had it, I rode it about 600 miles. I was still living in Magic Hollow, so I’d ride to Mt. Trashmore from there. It was about an 8 mile ride, and I was doing good to do it in 45 minutes…with a big push down Silina at about 16mph!

In 2005, Suzan and I got married and moved into our new house near the Amphitheater, and I started riding a little more. In July 2006, Wayne came down for his summer vacation, and brought his bike. While he was here the Tour de France was going on, and we had both seen the TV ads for Fat Frogs. When he got here, we decided to go ride with the shop. That was it! I was hooked.

For the last year and a half, I’ve ridden with the shop on almost every weekend. At first I started just riding with the c-pace ride with Joe. We’d ride at 15-16mph with pushes to 17-18, and I was sometimes struggling to hold on. I kept riding and got faster and stronger. That first winter, I decided I’d ride until I ran out of clothes. I actually managed to make every weekend ride until February-ish (but then it was ski season!) Soon, I was riding and pushing the B-Pace ride. By the real beginning of the summer season, I was riding with the “fast B-Pace” group, usually finishing with front of the group. Sometime in April or May, I totally crushed the B-pace ride, so I decided it was time to move up to the A-Pace. I’ve been riding A-pace ever since!

Currently, I am still riding, shooting for 3000 miles, and I should be pretty close. I’m putting in between 75-100 miles per week.

Ok…so that catches you up on cycling…now check out the blogs!